


After the Soviet Union

by TakisAngel



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Crying, Depression, Soviet Family, Soviet Union, TibMongol implied, USSR, a spanish opera I think, a threatened Chinese food lady, after the soviet union, historical hetalia i guess?, just a thing man, mongolia being a badass, tough love baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 20:26:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12307104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TakisAngel/pseuds/TakisAngel
Summary: It's after the death of the Soviet Union, and Russia feels terrible, contemplating his life and wondering how he'll ever go on in the lonely old house. Unfortunately, Mongolia is having none of it.Oneshot, TibMongol implied.





	After the Soviet Union

After the Soviet Union

Ivan Braginsky was miserable. The Soviet Union had collapsed, his economy was in ruins, and he had to deal with that STUPID American’s look of triumph, an expression that said, oh, I’m sorry, were you are a superpower? I didn’t notice over the sound of ALL MY MONEY! Mwahaha! It didn’t help that he now owed the American 45 bucks from a bet back in 1945.   
But the worst part of it all was the loneliness. During the Soviet Union, there was always people mulling and working around the house, talking and laughing and filling the large mansion with cheerful banter and at least some noise. But all of the Soviet states left, with Kazakhstan being the last one to skip out the door. She even punched his shoulder and cackled about how she was going to destroy the rest of Central Asia, before telling him that she hoped she and Russia could still trade after this mess was over.  
And once she was gone, the house had gone quiet. Deathly quiet. The only sounds came from the howling winds and the mansion's occasionally shuddered. Ivan would sit in his room and listen, hoping to hear Latvia yelling about impossible to cook food, or the Caucasus nations throwing rocks at each other with glee, or even the sound of his older sister humming away while finishing the laundry. But there was nothing, and the house remained a solemn tomb of memories long gone, and a fancy casket for a bitter old man who wanted to hide away in the ground and never come out. His sulking lasted for weeks, months, before one nation had enough.  
“IVAANJAV!” The house roared, and Russia fell out of his chair in surprise. Did the house finally learn how to talk? And why did it sound like an angry Mongolia?  
“IVAANJAV, I KNOW YOU ARE HERE!” Oh god, that wasn’t the house, Ivan realized rather stupidly, still a bit hungover from his vodka drinking session from last night. That WAS Mongolia. Oh god, he worried, Mongolia didn’t come here to kill him did he? He heard that happened sometimes with empires and their subjects. But, he reasoned, Mongolia didn’t live here, and he was an independent nation! He couldn’t have come here to kill him. Right?  
“IVAANJAV, FOR THE LAST FRICKING TIME, I KNOW YOU ARE HERE! SHOW YOURSELF, YOU VODKA LOVING COWARD!” Better safe than sorry, Russia decided and jumped out of the kitchen and to into his locked weapon supply room upstairs.  
“WELL THEN, IF THAT’S HOW YOU WANT TO PLAY YOU RUSSIAN DRUNK, LET’S GO! I HAVE ALL DAY TO FIND YOU!” the house rumbled, and Russia took a gun and spear from off one of the walls and pointed them at the door in fear. No way the Mongol was going to get him! Not when he still had 326 fully functional guns in the same room!  
“READY OR NOT, HERE I COME!” Ivan waited in silence, skin crawling with fear and eyes wide, tracking the door’s every move. The minutes dragged on, and the Russian slowly began to relax slightly, gun pointed a bit down. Then an hour past and Ivan was lulled into a sense of safety, putting his gun on the ground where he was sitting and searching through his pocket for any vodka or food that he usually had stashed all over his house (except for the weapon room dammit). Time walked on, and Russia boredly looked at one of his guns that he won from Alfred (he had an entire collection along with angry letters from Alfred to send them back, which he never did of course). More time sped by, and Russia was debating coming out to fight Mongolia just for the entertainment when the door slammed open and an angry looking braided hair man glared at the terrified Russian with godlike fury.  
“You see, THIS is why I DON’T DO NICE THINGS! I come all the way from ASIA to come see you, AND YOU’RE HIDING FROM ME IN A ROOM! I spent 3 HOURS LOOKING FOR YOU IN THIS BLASTED HOUSE!” Mongolia roared, grabbing Ivan’s collar and pulling him off the ground, thoroughly pissed off. “AND I FIND YOU HIDING IN A CLOSET!”  
“It’s a weapon room,” he corrected meekly, only for Mongolia to drop him onto the ground and jab at his chest with every furious word the Mongolian had to say.  
“WELL, if it’s a WEAPON ROOM I suppose that makes it alright that I was on a plane for SIX hours to come and cheer you up and had to look around your MANSION WITHOUT ANY FOOD OR WATER OR ANYONE TO SAY HELLO! Because after all, it's a WEAPON ROOM!” Mongolia threw his hands in the air and started to walk out. “THIS is why I never listen to Tibet. Go cheer up your friend, he said, it’ll be a fun trip, he said, he wouldn’t hide in any CLOSETS, he said. I’m never taking that monk’s advice again.”  
Ivan’s eyes widen and he rushed out of the weapon room trying to catch up to the furious Mongol. “Look Munkhbat, I’m sorry, I didn't know!” He caught up to the fairly short man on the stairs, grabbing his sleeves and panting from walking so fast. “Please,” he said in between gasps of air, “Stay for awhile, you came all this way after all.”  
The former empire looked at the doubled over man, still gasping for air, and decided that he really did need to have a talk with Ivaanjav. The Russian looked like a goat that had been in the wild and eating nothing but wildflowers for years. Not to mention the Mongol was hungry.   
“Alright fine. I’ll stay. But you have to give me food,” Mongolia grunted and went down the rest of the stairs to the kitchen.  
“Thank you Munkhbat! I was simply frightened, I didn’t mean to insult you.” Ivan gave a sigh of relief and looked around the kitchen, before realizing with a face full of embarrassment that he hadn’t cleaned the kitchen in three months. The Mongol sat on a chair behind him, looking at the destroyed kitchen with a critical eye. Ivaanjav was in even worse shape than he thought.  
“Sorry about the kitchen, I haven’t cleaned up in a while.”  
“I can see that.”  
“Um, would you like some food?” Mongolia raised an eyebrow. “Right, stupid question. What food would you like?”  
“Anything that isn’t filled with vodka and the smell of death, which is what I assume is half of what you have.”  
“Pickles it is.” Ivan grabbed a jar of pickles from the top shelf, and placed in on the table in front of Mongolia, putting down a paper plate and a couple of plastic forks down as well. Ivan sat down, and they both looked at their quite pathetic meal before Munkhbat decided to address the elephant in the large, awkward, and more than a little sad room.   
“Ivaanjav, you’re a mess.”  
“I know, the food is a little bad but-”  
“No, I mean YOU are a mess. Look at yourself! You obviously haven’t changed your clothes in weeks, and the house is in complete disarray! Just look of your kitchen you are always so proud of! It’s terrible. All of your things are being destroyed and falling apart and rotting because you are not taking care of anything. This place is a mess, The kitchen is a mess. But the biggest, worst, most rotting mess in this room, is you.”  
Ivan’s eyes went wide. He looked around the kitchen he used to be so proud of back in the Soviet days, looked up at the ceiling where a spot of fungus could be seen on the ancient roof, and then glanced down at himself, at his stained coat and unwashed hair, his nails coated with dirt and skin gritty from oil and spilled alcohol. He looked at it all, and then at Munkhbat’s severe face. And then Ivan started to cry.  
Mongolia led him to the couch in an adjoining room as Ivan sobbed his heart out, collapsing on the couch and hugging a pillow soon filled with snot and tears. Ivan cried and cried, harder than he cried after the death of Anastasia, harder than he cried during all the wars he had to fight as a child, harder than when Germany stabbed him the back, harder than he ever left anyone to hear. He cried for his lost Soviet Union. He cried because how he lost the great, terrible game between him and America. He cried because of the way the house creaked and groaned with no one to sweep its cobwebs or mop the floor. He cried because he would never, ever be able to cry this way again, like the world had crashed and burned, and he was the only one that got singed, and everyone was happy to see the whole world die and leave him alone burning in the dirt. He cried and he cried, letting his heart out in the open for all to see, lost in a pile of emotions he would never feel again.  
Through it all, Munkhbat sat beside him, giving tissues when asked and bringing over water when it was not. He listened as his former charge cried loneliness and fear and sorrow. He sat by and waited until Ivan had cried every emotion out of him, leaving an empty shell of a man who sat numbly on the couch and sniffled every once in awhile, blowing his nose and hugging the pillow tighter. He sat there when Ivan finally said something comprehensible, the first real, unfiltered thought he had since everyone had left him to die alone since the world had left to watch him burn.  
“Do we have any food?”  
It took something digging, but Munkhbat managed to produce some bread he had found deep in the cupboard. After that proved to be insufficient to the now doubly hungry men, Mongolia swallowed his pride and ordered Chinese food. After yelling at the lady on the phone for a few minutes (“What do you mean you can’t deliver in this location?! It’s not THAT far from Moscow! Get your stupid Chinese food over to this address or I will burn your restaurant to the ground! I’m hungry and I know your address goddammit!), the food arrived and they sat down at the newly cleaned table, talking of times past long ago.   
“I know how you feel Ivaanjav. When I fell apart after the Mongol Empire, I felt excruciating pain for years. I could hardly move! It was a miracle that Buddha didn’t call me up to afterlife right then.”  
“You felt the terrible pain of loneliness and sadness that feels like it could swallow your being because everyone hates you and wish you’d simply disappear so they can get your land?”  
“Er, I was talking about more physical pain, feeling like I was being torn into pieces day after day after day, with my limbs randomly falling off and new scars popping up every once in awhile, but sure, that too I guess.”  
“Does it ever get easier?” Russia asked softly, putting down his chow mein and staring at the white rice like it had all the answers.  
The Mongol shrugged. “It is like any loss. It hurts forever, but it dulls with time. Who knows? Maybe in 40 years, you won’t even feel that bad anymore.”  
“Oh.” Ivan looked back down at his rice. “What would you do if you were in my place then?”  
“Besides relish in glory over all the land I owned?”  
“Um, sure.”  
“Join an army.”  
“Really? What would you do for the sadness?” Ivan asked.  
“Join an army.”  
“The loneliness?”  
“Join an army.”  
“The lack of purpose?”  
“Join an army, duh. That one was easy.”  
“No friends?  
“Join an army.”  
“Would you do anything BESIDES joining an army?”  
The Mongol was quiet for a second, before scratching his braided hair in confusion and giving Russia a raised eyebrow. “Does joining a mercenary ring count?”  
“I can’t believe you. Would you do anything BESIDES fighting?!”  
“Of course not! I’m a fighter! The only way I’m still alive is because I hit my problems! If I feel bad, I’ll just follow my great leader Genghis Khan’s word of advice.”  
“And what’s that?”  
“Join an army.” Russia gave a cry of frustration and Mongolia let a tiny smirk rest on his face.  
“Okay, what about if you were feeling like I was feeling, you couldn’t fight anyone and had no way to join an army of any kind. What would you do then?” Ivan asked, trying to get an answer that could actually help him.  
“That is the reason Tibet exists,” Munkhbat grinned, devouring more of his rice.  
“So you’re saying I should seek the comfort of those I love?”  
“Sure Ivaanjav. Whatever you say. Do we have any more rice?”  
Soon all the food was gone, and the pair were sitting on the couch once more, remote in hand and surfing through Russian channels. They sat in silence, well, Mongolia was complaining about the crappy T.V reception, which was rich coming from a guy who never had reception at his place, as Russia pointed out, but that might have well been white noise. Generally, they sat in relative silence, until Russia finally spoke.  
“Thanks for coming. I needed that,” he whispered, glancing at Munkhbat to see his reaction.  
“Hmm? You mean making you cry? Don’t worry about it, I do it often, though not really on purpose. Think of it as tough love,” Munkhbat explained, before focusing back at the T.V.  
“Mongolia?”  
“Yeah?”  
“I’m sorry for what I did to you when I was the Soviet Union.”  
“Well, that’s in the past now, isn’t it? Besides, at least you apologized, and that makes you twice the man China will ever be. Oh, go back a couple channels, I think I saw a Spanish opera.”


End file.
